…
The cartoon played on the screen—some All Might tribute show, bright and loud and exhausting. My mother sat beside me on the couch, her warmth seeping into my side, her breathing gradually slowing into the rhythm of sleep. I waited, counting the seconds between her inhales, until I was sure she was under.
Then I moved. Careful, practiced, the way I'd learned to be careful with everything in this body. Slid out from under her arm, grabbed the throw blanket from the couch's end, draped it over her shoulders. She didn't stir.
"Time to start training," I whispered, the words barely sound.
The backyard was dark, Manhattan's light pollution turning the sky a bruised orange-black. The grass was cool under my bare feet, dew starting to form. I walked past the koi pond, the water still and silver in the dim light, toward the rock garden my mother had installed last spring. Decorative stones. Perfect for testing.
I picked one up, felt its weight, its texture. Focused on the concept of gold—the color, the density, the atomic structure I'd been reading about in Tony's advanced textbooks.
It changed instantly. No resistance, no drain, just becoming. The stone became a lump of 24-karat gold, warm in my palm where it had been cool.
I paused. Waited for the exhaustion, the hunger that had flattened me in the classroom. Nothing came.
"Okay," I said to no one. "Let's push."
I focused on the connection between myself and the metal. Felt it respond, lift, hover in front of my face. Then I pushed further—melt, I thought, and it melted, becoming liquid that shouldn't have stayed coherent in the cool night air but did, held together by whatever force my Quirk generated.
Still no fatigue.
I shaped it. Long, straight, a blade. A golden longsword, simple, clean. I grabbed the hilt, felt the metal give slightly under my grip—
Crunch.
The blade bent like tinfoil, folding in on itself where my fingers pressed.
"Right." I let out a breath, annoyed. "Gold is soft."
I focused again, holding the ruined blade in both hands. Harden, I thought, trying to visualize the molecular structure tightening, bonds strengthening. The metal trembled, resisted, then—
Held. Firm. Solid enough that when I tested it with my thumb, it didn't give.
"Yes." The grin came unbidden, the first real excitement since the awakening. I swung the blade, felt it cut air, heard the whistle—
Snap.
The blade shattered at the stress point, fragments becoming liquid before they hit the ground, rejoining the main mass. At the same moment, the exhaustion hit. Not gradual—crushing, a weight on my shoulders, my chest, my mind. My knees buckled. Hunger followed, sharp and specific, the kind that made my hands shake.
"Damn." I was breathing hard, bent over, watching the golden puddle hover obediently in front of me. "So that's the cost."
Creation was free. Manipulation was free. But altering the properties—changing gold's fundamental nature, making it hard, making it something it wasn't—that burned reserves I hadn't known I had.
I spent another hour testing the boundaries. Transmutation of non-gold materials—free, but limited by mass. I could turn a stone to gold, but not a boulder, not yet. Shaping liquid gold—effortless. Hardening it—expensive. Flying it through the air like an extension of my will—cheap, almost reflexive.
By the time I went inside, I had a headache and a hollow feeling in my gut that porridge wouldn't fix.
I raided my closet. The jewelry my mother had made me—rings, chains, a small bracelet—sat in a wooden box. I ate them one by one, feeling the energy return with each piece, the hunger fading, the headache clearing. They tasted like sugar, like honey, like the best dessert I'd ever had.
"This is actually broken," I muttered around a mouthful of gold, already reaching for the next piece.
I collapsed into bed full, satisfied, and drifted into sleep with the taste of metal and sweetness on my tongue.
The next day..
The bathroom mirror showed me golden teeth, golden tongue when I stuck it out. I brushed them anyway, the bristles scratching against metal that shouldn't need cleaning, wondering if my breath would smell if I skipped it. Probably not. But the ritual mattered, the normalcy of it.
"Good morning, Mom."
She was already in the kitchen, bright and awake and unfairly beautiful. "Good morning, sweetie. Sleep well?"
"Yeah." I paused, considering. "Can you get me books? On chemistry, biology, physics?"
She blinked. "Midas, where did you learn those words?"
"Online." The lie came smooth, practiced. I'd been reading since before I could walk, absorbing information from screens I shouldn't have been able to reach, but she'd never questioned it. Never treated me like the anomaly I was.
Her expression melted into pride anyway. "Oh, my smart little golden boy." She leaned down, kissed my forehead. "Mommy will get them for you, okay?"
"Oh—and I made you something special."
She disappeared into the kitchen, returned with a plate stacked high. Six golden ribeye steaks, seared, smelling of butter and salt and metal. My mouth watered.
"You're the best," I said, and meant it.
I didn't use utensils. Picked them up with my hands, tore into them, felt the gold-infused meat settle into my stomach and burn, converting into something my body could use. Ten seconds, maybe fifteen. Gone.
And I felt it—the immediate surge, the strength returning, the sense that I could run a marathon or lift a car or do both at once.
We drove to school in the BMW, my mother humming along to the radio, me staring out the window at a city that felt increasingly small.
I spotted Tony near the entrance, backpack slung over one shoulder, already moving with the purpose of someone who had somewhere better to be.
"Tony! Wait!"
He turned, saw me, slowed. "Midas?"
I ran up, grinning despite myself. "My Quirk finally awakened!"
"Yeah, I heard." He smiled, but it was tight, the expression of someone who'd spent yesterday fielding questions about his Quirkless best friend's sudden power. "But we should go before we get in trouble again."
"Yeah, yeah."
We walked into class together. The moment I crossed the threshold, the noise died.
Every eye turned to me. I saw the fear in some, the curiosity in others, the calculation in the ones who'd already decided I was competition. They'd all seen the classroom yesterday, the golden floor, the desk that had become a puddle, the teacher screaming for everyone to evacuate.
"Alright, class." Mrs. Allen clapped her hands, sharp and commanding. "Midas isn't going to hurt anyone. He's going to be a hero just like all of you."
She moved to my side, placed a hand on my shoulder. The touch was light, careful, and I noticed she was wearing a different necklace than yesterday. "Midas, why don't you show everyone you can control your Quirk?"
I nodded. Reached up, took her new necklace—simple gold chain, probably expensive—and put it in my mouth.
Crunch.
Chewed. Swallowed.
Silence. Then, from somewhere in the back, a giggle. Then another. Then the room erupted, kids laughing, pointing, the tension breaking like ice under pressure.
I burped. Golden dust escaped my lips, glittering in the fluorescent light. "I can also do this."
A golden orb formed in front of me, summoned from the reserves I'd built up this morning. It floated, spinning slowly, catching light. I expanded it to basketball size, held it there, felt the minimal drain.
"Woah…"
The fear was gone. Replaced by the wide-eyed awe of children watching something impossible become mundane. I grabbed the orb, felt it soften in my grip, brought it to my mouth and ate it in two bites.
The teacher stared. Her smile stayed fixed, but her eyes were cold, calculating, reassessing whatever threat assessment she'd filed me under yesterday.
"…Alright, class. Let's start learning our ABCs."
"Aww…" The groan was universal, the sound of kids who'd just seen magic and now had to sit through phonics.
Recess. Tony and I sat at the edge of the playground, near the tree line where the fence met the woods. He was talking fast, hands moving, sketching diagrams in the dirt with a stick.
"—the atomic structure of gold, right? Seventy-nine protons, it's a noble metal, doesn't corrode, doesn't oxidize. If your Quirk is literally manipulating Au, then you're working with one of the most stable elements in existence. Do you understand what that means?"
"That I'm basically invincible?" I offered.
"No—well, yes, but also." He pointed the stick at me, intense in the way he got when something interested him more than people. "It means your power has a foundation in actual physics. It's not just 'magic gold.' It's real gold, with real properties, which means you can learn the science behind it, optimize it, figure out the limits based on material science rather than trial and error."
I smirked. "I know, right?"
I liked this—liked him, despite the arrogance, despite the moments when his father's voice came out of his mouth. He was five, Quirkless in a world that worshipped powers, and already thinking three moves ahead of everyone else. The genius was forming, hardening like the gold I'd failed to create last night, and I was watching it happen in real time.
"—and if you can transmute other materials into gold," he continued, "you need to figure out the mass conversion ratio. Is it one-to-one? Does it depend on density? Because if you're turning lead to gold, that's—"
"Already planning to test it," I interrupted. "Tonight. You want to come?"
He stopped. Looked at me, something vulnerable flickering behind the confidence. "Your mom lets you—"
"She doesn't know." I shrugged. "She thinks I'm sleeping. I'll sneak out."
Tony was quiet for a moment. Then: "Yeah. Okay. I'll bring my notes."
I was back in my room, dark except for the city glow through the window. Thinking about the future—about Tony, about heroes, about the cosmic threats I might have to face if the MCU timeline held true. It was too much, too big, too many variables.
"Focus."
I dropped to the floor. Hands flat, body straight.
"Let's see my limit."
Push-ups. Fast, controlled, counting in my head.
One hundred. Two hundred. My arms burned, but it was distant, manageable.
Four hundred. Six hundred. The burn intensified, became real.
Nine hundred. Now I felt it—strain, the muscles working, the body finally encountering resistance.
Nine hundred ninety-seven.
Nine hundred ninety-eight.
Nine hundred ninety-nine.
"…Come on."
I collapsed. Face-first into the carpet, arms shaking, chest heaving. The number echoed in my head: one thousand push-ups at four years old.
I let out a laugh, breathless and raw. "Those nurses weren't wrong."
Monster. They'd called me that, whispered it where they thought I couldn't hear. I'd resented it then. Now, sweating and shaking on my bedroom floor, I wondered if they'd been more right than they knew.
I dragged myself onto the bed, stared at the ceiling, thought about heroes and threats and everything coming for me. Sleep hit like a wall, sudden and absolute, and the last thing I saw was the orange blur of light-polluted sky, indifferent to the child becoming something else beneath it.
To be continued…